Three artists did a performance where they distilled liquor out of a piece of a Joseph Beuys’s sculpture, “Fettecke.” Beuys’s widow called the performance “crap and stupid.” [artnet News]

In scary, apocalypse-y news of the day, a new study says that we’re in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. [USA Today]

If you want a sense of just how hard it is to talk about the Israel/Palestine situation, last night’s “10 Days/10 Ideas” workshop was a good reminder. We hear that instead of Skyping in artist Khaled Jarrar, the event was shuffled around between venues until finally landing in a bar. Fortunately, Deborah Solomon interviewed him. [WNYC]

Given how contentious that small event seemed to be, it’s not surprising when Christian Viveros-Fauné points out that the New Museum’s Here and Elsewhere, a survey of art from the Arab world, is “New York’s first museum exhibition of art from that region.” He thinks it’s long overdue. [Artnet News]

Labour leader Ed Miliband uses the phrase “image-based politics” to describe the social media-friendly look of David Cameron’s campaign; signalling a change in style, this comes with an unflattering photo of Miliband eating a bacon sandwich. It’s reminiscent of John McCain’s smear ad comparing Obama to Paris Hilton. [The Guardian]

All hail cats. For better or worse, Nyan Cat, Kitler, and LOLcats have burned their way into our Internet-based memories. They’ve been nuzzling their way into our lives for ages, and for one such historical reminder, look no further than Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers’ performance “Interview with a Cat”.

This week in really boring summer stories with traction, New York Magazine profiles collector and conceptual food artist Jennifer Rubell. The feature tells readers pretty much what they would expect: eating fancy dinners with famous people as a child influenced her interest in making work for them. It was scary, of course, to become a […]